A Devil Named DeVere (The Devil DeVere) (29 page)

***

Positioned between her supple thighs, the tangy, musky scent of pure arousal hit Ludovic in a dizzying wave. His cock still throbbed with a vengeance, and her wet sheath beckoned to him, calling out to be filled, a cry he wasn't about to ignore. Indeed, he vowed this time
nothing
would hold him back...but he would make her pay...and pay dearly.

He lifted one of her legs, positioning it on his shoulder, rubbing his cheek back and forth along the softness of her inner thigh before applying his lips and tongue. Slowly, he worked his way toward his goal, with nibbles and hot kisses, all the while savoring her anticipation, the quiver in her legs, the raspy puffs of breath. He paused at the juncture of pubis and thigh, tracing the delicate groove with his tongue, relishing her sultry sounds. She reached out to grip his hair, urging him toward her sex.

"All in good time, my sweet." He chuckled and withdrew to apply himself to the opposite thigh in like manner. This time, however, he dipped his head, parting her folds with one long, wet swipe of his tongue. She whimpered.

"But you didn't want the pleasure," he taunted. He plied teasing kisses to her belly just above her mons while his free hand delved into her wetness. He circled her passage with swirling strokes of his thumb. Her body tensed beneath him.
"Have you changed your mind now, Diana?"

"Please," she whispered.

"Please what? Please pleasure me, Ludovic? Please, oh please, put your magnificent mouth in my sweet cunny?"

"Yes! I want your mouth. I want all of you. I've waited so very long!"

"How unchivalrous of me to keep you waiting." He chuckled. "But then again, I would have been happy to oblige you much sooner, had you only asked."

"You know I couldn't have. Stop tormenting me!"

"My dear, I have only just begun."

***

His laugh fired her ire as much as his breath tickled her skin. But then,
dear God
, her mind became a blur, lost in the sublime sensation of his glorious mouth buried in her sex. His hot tongue lapped, circled, and swirled, flicking over her clit, while his equally clever fingers finessed her labial folds and pierced her passage with wonderfully, rhythmic penetrations, filling her body with ineffable bliss. The past hour or more spent in sex play had reawakened her deepest and innermost yearnings. Her body craved the joining with him as desperately as her lungs craved air. She wondered why she had fought him so long and hard when surrender was so utterly sweet and sublime...yet it still wasn't enough. "Please, Ludovic, let me go!" She stifled a sob. "I need more than this. I want
you.
I
need
you!"

It was as if she'd uttered some magical phrase that suddenly caused the Earth to halt on its axis. He fixed upon her with glimmering eyes, his expression enigmatic. "More? You want me inside you?"

She met his gaze steadily and shook her head. "I do, but that's not what I meant."

He came over her, grasping both her shoulders in a fierce grip. "It is merely your passion that speaks," he said. "We are all of us mindless fools whilst in the grip of lust."

"And I am a mindless fool for ever accepting this wager. For ever thinking I could resist you." She pulled his hand to her left breast. "But it is not only my passion that speaks. It is also my heart. I can't do this anymore. So I ask you now to
please
let me go."

He answered by crushing her to him with a fierce kiss that tasted of her essence. "No, Diana. I'm not prepared to do that. I have no desire to let you go—not now or at any time in the foreseeable future."

"But you can't mean that," she said. "It's only because you haven't—"

"Untrue," he interrupted. "Shall I spend my seed just to prove it to you?"

She regarded him blankly. "Then where does this leave us? I'm completely at sea."

He caressed her cheek. "Didn't you just say it needn't be so complicated?"

"But how can we be together? May heaven forgive me, I would be your mistress for as long as this lasted, but how could we do such a thing to your brother and our friends? How could we inflict them with such a scandal?"

"Devil take them all! I'm not accustomed to living for others, Diana."

"Therein lies the gulf between us," she answered softly, feeling as if the weight of respectability, responsibility, and mostly regret were crushing the life out of her.

He cupped her cheek and murmured against her lips. "I won't be denied in this."

"And I won't deny you," she answered.
This one last time.

When their lovemaking continued, the tone was transformed. No longer playful and challenging, it was slow, deliberate, almost reverent, as if they each wished to savor every
moment. They kissed as he entered her in one deep, smooth thrust, their tongues engaging in the same languid lovers' dance as their bodies but then responding more fervently with the delicious, wet friction and the slap of flesh on flesh. Her own soft pants and sultry sounds of pleasure, her heels hooking his flanks, all seemed to incite him further, to drive him harder. Pounding into her with ragged breaths, he propelled them both ever closer to the brink of the abyss. As the first tremors of a magnificent climax broke over her in rushing waves, Diana raised her hips. Squeezing and milking him with her inner muscles, she offered all she had to give, sobbing in ecstasy even as she hurtled them both into rapturous oblivion.

He met her in that precious instant, roaring out her name with his release as his body convulsed in ceaseless spasms, spurting almost endless, scalding streams of his seed inside her. He collapsed into her beckoning arms and rolled beside her with a deep and guttural groan, completely and utterly spent.

It was barely
dawn when Diana crept into her bedchamber at the house on Upper Grosvenor Street. Her bleary-eyed maid met her, candle in one hand and fireplace poker in the other. "Ye gave me a fright, my lady!" Polly exclaimed, dropping the poker with a clatter.

"Is everything
awright, luv?" chimed a distinctly male voice, the body of which promptly emerged from the maid's chamber beyond Diana's dressing room.

"Pratt?" Diana exclaimed upon recognizing DeVere's head groom dressed in only his nightshirt. Polly flushed crimson. The groom and maid exchanged guilty glances. The candle flickered in the maid's trembling hand. Diana took it from her and set it on the mantle.

Freed now of candle and poker, Polly wrung her hands. "It's just...you said...we was not expecting ye for some days yet, my lady."

"Please, my lady." Pratt stepped forward protectively and took Polly's hand. "'
Tisn't quite what it appears. I've every intention to make an honest woman o' her."

"You do?" Polly cried, appearing as if she would burst into tears.

"Then I suppose that gives me one less thing to worry about," Diana said with a wry smile.

"What do you mean?" Polly asked.

"There's been a change of plans," Diana said. "I'm leaving London immediately. There is a carriage awaiting me in the mews. I will need you to help me pack."

"Now, my lady?" Polly cast a wistful gaze to her incongruous lover. "Do you mean for us to return so soon to Yorkshire?"

"No, Polly. I suppose under the circumstances it would be best to send you to Epsom to wait upon Lady Vesta. I shall also provide you with a generous severance, but I'm certain she would be delighted to take you into her employ. I presume under the circumstances that Mr. Pratt will have no objection to escorting you there?"

"Nay, indeed." The groom tugged his forelock and offered a cheeky grin.

"But what of you, my lady? What has happened that you would depart so abruptly? It's
him
again, isn't it?"

Diana arched a brow. "I don't wish to discuss this at present. Suffice to say that with Sir Edward and Vesta both wed, there is
little for me to return to. I have need of a change, Polly, and have decided to go abroad for a time. I will write later and explain everything, but for now, I wish no further delay."

***

Diana stared sightlessly out the carriage window, lost in deep abstraction. Though she never could have anticipated it, everything in her life had changed, and there truly was no going back, no retreat. Diana didn't know what the future would hold, but she had already experienced the emptiness of her past. Thus, she had resolved to brazen forth to meet her fate head-on with a bold audacity she hadn't even known she possessed.

After what seemed like interminable hours travelling in the unavoidable fits and starts of London's morning traffic, she finally arrived at her destination. The driver opened her door and let down the steps. She alighted to be greeted with a burst of damp, ocean-scented air. "Which is it?" she asked the coachman.

"The first one, my lady.
The Sylphe.
"

No sooner had he answered than DeVere himself appeared, advancing toward her in long, purposeful strides, a look of immense relief replacing the strain that had briefly etched his face. He pulled her into an impassioned embrace, kissing her long and deep. "I had the greatest fear you had changed your
mind," he said.

"No, my love. I'm so sorry to have caused you any distress. It was only the traffic that kept me. I have had no second thoughts," she assured him. "But what of you?"

"None. Indeed, I have never felt happier. I'm damned-near giddy."

"Giddy?" she repeated dubiously.

"Yes. Positively drunk with bliss. You have charmed and enslaved me, my dearest."

"Have I, indeed?"

"Yes. You have," he said, all humor evaporating. They stood thus for an endless moment, searching each other's eyes. DeVere broke the silence. He gestured to the elegant yacht moored in the harbor. "Our vessel awaits, and I promise all has been prepared for your comfort, my love."

"Do you know, I've never been on a sea voyage, Ludovic? I've never been out of the country."

He took her arm with a brilliant smile. "Then adventure awaits, and once more, I'm delighted to be your guide."

"But where will we go?" she asked.

"My dearest Diana," he kissed her tenderly, "wherever your heart desires."

Tuscany, fourteen months later

Diana opened her
eyes to the sun blazing into the Tuscan villa through the open terrace doors. She gave a lazy, feline stretch before a flash of white caught her eye. Throwing on her wrapper, she padded barefoot to find Ludovic perusing some letters over his coffee. He was dressed in only breeches and shirtsleeves, his collar open at the throat. He glanced up at her and instantly smiled, his teeth gleaming brilliantly white and his eyes startlingly blue in his handsome, sun-bronzed face. A mere flick of his finger saw a cup of frothy, steaming brew and a basket of sweet rolls and cake placed under her nose.

"You've been sleeping unusually late," he remarked. She noted the curious flicker in his gaze.

"Yes, I fear it's become an atrociously bad habit with me, but it seems I get very little rest at night." She fought to control the tug at her lips.

He tented his brows at her. "Is that a complaint?"

"Not at all, my lord," she reassured him with a grin.

"That's a good thing then, for I've no intention of moderating my nocturnal activities."

She raised her cup and blew on the coffee. "Then I suppose I'll just have to continue lazing abed in the mornings. Have you a letter from Hew?" She peered over his arm.

"From Hew and Ned both, actually. All is well with Phoebe and little Ned, and it seems I am soon to become an uncle as well."

"Hew and Vesta too?" she cried. "Already?"

"My brother is nothing, if not efficient."

"Efficient? How unflattering that sounds. I would have expected you to say something like virile or potent."

"Perhaps I choose to reserve those accolades for myself," he said with a significant pause. "By the by, Diana, when did you intend to tell me?"

"Tell you what?" she asked.

"Come now. You can't possibly think that I haven't noticed. Did you suppose I would be angry?"

"Angry about what? I honestly don't know what you're talking about, Ludovic."

"My dear, no woman is able to accommodate a man with such frequency as you have done these past several months. Add
to that your unusual lethargy, which I won't flatter myself is
entirely
due to sexual exertion, I feel I must inquire, when was your last flux?"

"M-my flux?" She regarded him blankly.

"Yes, dearest. It is a normal cycle of nature that besets postpubescent females and plagues them at regular intervals for decades. I haven't observed you suffering this particular affliction for some time."

"Dear God! But you are right," she cried. "The last time I had my courses was when we were in Florence."

"Well over three months hence, my dear. Are you saying you weren't trying to hide it from me? That you truly didn't consider the possibility you could be—"

"It can't be. I'm barren!" Diana's hand shook. Coffee sloshed.

"Given the indications, you must forgive me for questioning the veracity of that statement. I regret that I became careless, but I believed it wasn't possible for this to happen."

"I'm sorry to have disappointed you!"

"That's not what I meant!"

She rose abruptly with her blood roaring in her ears and her entire being flooding with panic. Cup and saucer smashed on the
marble floor.

"Please, Diana." He reached out to her. "We must speak of this."

"Do you think we can just go along as if nothing has changed? This changes everything! It's not only about you and me. It can never be the same between us now." She pulled away with a stifled sob.

For fourteen glorious months, Diana had laughed, loved, and lived to the fullest, only for all to crumble before her eyes. "I want to go home! Please, Ludovic," she cried, "take me home to England at once."

***

Diana had refused to seek the attention of an Italian doctor, choosing instead to savor a few more weeks of denial, though it was more like wallowing in misery, for time itself confirmed both her inexpressible joy at the tiny life growing inside her and her desolation that the
grande passion
of her life would perforce come to an end.

Ludovic had told her from the very beginning he would not wed, and she had accepted what he
was
willing to offer. She had not suffered in the exchange. Besides being a magnificent lover, DeVere was kind and generous, intelligent, witty, worldly, and polished, but had never treated her with condescension. And while she had always known their time would eventually come to an end, she had been far too happy in the present to dwell upon the future, but now that future reared its ugly head.

In the weeks at sea, the divide only widened. Every time Ludovic had tried to breach the subject about the future, about security, she had refused to discuss what now lay inevitably between them. If she continued as his mistress, she would soon face shame and ostracism as the mother of DeVere's illegitimate child, and worse, the product of their passion would be forever stigmatized as a bastard.
That
is what hurt the most and what Diana would never allow.

Upon arriving back in England, she made an immediate departure for Yorkshire.

"Please, Diana," Ludovic pleaded as she entered the coach, "it doesn't have to be like this. Just allow me some time to work out a solution." He looked almost as desolate as she felt.

She guided his hand to her rapidly expanding belly. "Time is a commodity in short supply, my lord."

"I told you I will care for you. You will share my residence if that is your choice. I would never allow you or this child to suffer any want."

"You seem to overlook the simple
want of a name,
" she retorted bitterly.

"Damn it all, we are getting nowhere!" he cried, his features contorted with anguish. "I have to make you understand. This is not about love. It's about honor. For I do love you, don't you know that? More than I ever thought possible. But I am bound by
my honor
to my brother. I declared him my heir, he and
his
offspring. How can I rescind that? Don't you see how it is? If I produce a legitimate heir, the law will supersede my will. I can't do that to my only brother. Damn it all! A man should never have to choose between love and honor. This was
not
my choice!"

"I need time to think, Ludovic. Time alone. Please don't follow me."

"As you wish," he replied stiffly.

The door closed, and Diana swiftly faced away lest he see her come undone, for that's precisely how she felt, as if the very fiber of her being was slowly unraveling.